It was an ordinary day. Reading about the three generations of the Gibbons family who ran an Underground Railroad station near Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania. They helped move hundreds of freedom-seekers toward safety. It was on April 22 that the National Park Service recognized this contribution to anti-slavery history by naming the burial site of Quakers Daniel and Hannah Gibbons to its National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. The Gibbons family is buried in the 1728 graveyard at Lampeter Friends Meetinghouse in Bird-in-Hand. The National Park Service designation resulted from a yearlong effort by members of Lampeter Meeting to gain recognition for the role some of its former members played in the Underground Railroad. The designation honors the graves of the most significant Quaker Underground Railroad operators in Lancaster County. Daniel Gibbons and Hanna Wierman Gibbons processed nearly 1,000 freedom-seekers. Daniel took charge of the logistics while Hannah was a full partner in her husband's work. The Gibbon's stone and brick Underground Railroad house, built in 1815 along Beechdale Road was destroyed nearly four decades ago by a temporary owner who believed he could obliterate a historic building without consulting anyone. Lancaster city has ordinances to stop or at least slow demolition of historic structures. So do several other county municipalities. But most rural townships have no rules and do not regulate what new owners do to old properties. Well, in 1984, James Cason, a Fresno, California, businessman and carriage collector, purchased Beechdale. Coson and his wife, Angie, stayed in a large, early 20th-century stone house during their periodic visits to the place. They restored the exterior of the Underground Railroad building. But then the Cosons reversed course. One morning in the summer of 1986, Angie Coson woke up at Beechdale and decided the view from the stone house would be improved if the Underground Railroad house were removed. Workers demolished the building by day's end. A few years later, the Cosons sold the farm. Should someone who does not live here full time have destroyed part of this county's heritage on a whim - and without a whimper from Upper Leacock Township? So, now we are left with Daniel and Hannah's tombstones. Kudos to Lampeter Meeting and the National Park Service for recognizing their significance. Let's hope that nothing like that ever happens again in Lancaster County. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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| The Gibbons family's 1815 home which was used as an Underground Railroad station, but was demolished in 1986 due to lack of knowlegdge and extreme stupidity. |
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